J Paul Johnson
It was two and half years ago that The Fishbowl (La Pacera) made a splashy debut as the first Puerto Rican-produced feature to premiere at Sundance; after earlier this year finally earning a U.S. theatrical release, it is set appear on most streaming services this week. Glorimar Marrero Sánchez’s tightly focused, evocative drama is well worth anyone’s while: a story of a midlife cancer crisis and its resilient protagonist’s journey, The Fishbowl works both as an intimate personal journey and an allegory for the consequences of U.S. colonialism.
Isel Rodriguez, who is excellent throughout, plays Noelia, a 40-year-old artist who’d like nothing better than to continue enjoying life’s pleasures: a calming soak here, a little weed there, maybe a little beer and karaoke to let loose. But her body is in rebellion. During one of her soothing tub soaks, her colostomy bag leaks, and it’s clear it’s not the first such occurrence. She’s had some bleeding, some increasing pain, and more and more trouble managing her condition.
Little of this escapes the notice of Noelia’s doting partner Jorge (Maximiliano Rivas), whose concern comes across more as masculinist micromanagement than empathy. His love is sincere but smothering, and Noelia would rather not share every detail of her increasing discomfort. Marrero Sánchez’s script and direction here are especially astute: the dynamic between Jorge and Noelia is loving but claustrophobic, their relationship strained by her suffering.
When her doctor’s diagnosis makes clear Noelia’s worst fear—that her cancer is metastasizing—she leaves Jorge to return to her childhood home, where she spends her time reconnecting with her mother and the local community. There is no real medical care to speak of in the tiny village, and Noelia does her best to keep her condition a secret from her mother and her friends there. Pressing on with life, Noelia rekindles a past romance (with a local named Juni, played by Modesto Lacen)
and throws herself into the community’s work: protesting local environmental concerns wrought by U.S. military activity. All of these—Noelia’s worsening cancer, her romantic entanglements, the village’s environmental devastation—are brought to a climax as a hurricane approaches.
To summarize the second-act conflicts in a single sentence like that might sound like I’m likening The Fishbowl to a Sirkian melodrama, but Marrero Sánchez’s steady script and Rodriguez’s compelling performance ground the film’s events in an everyday realism that never feels in the least contrived. As the hurricane approaches, all of the dots in the script connect to establish a broader, more allegorical point: that cancer metastasizing in Noelia’s colon is synecdochic of something larger.
That the second and third acts of The Fishbowl are set on the tiny island of Vieques is more than merely incidental. It’s beautiful, remote, and exotic (at least to judge from the film’s presentation and other photography!), home to the bioluminescent Mosquito Bay and dozens of undeveloped beach coves; it was also, however, a U.S. Navy bombing range and testing-ground for toxic munitions like napalm, depleted uranium, and Agent Orange up until 2003 and subsequently the site of international environmental protests. How significant is the devastation? Cleanup efforts there are slated to continue through 2032 at a cost of some $800 million, according to a 2021 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The fallout from the U.S. colonialist military activity in Vieques is like a cancerous growth, taking root and metastasizing where it’s unwelcome and insidious, slowly poisoning its host. It’s in this context that Noelia’s own individual battle, more than sufficiently poignant and enthralling for any cinematic narrative, gains even greater meaning. As she wrestles with her decisions—to return to Jorge or reconnect more intimately with Juni, to seek treatment or resign herself to fate, to prioritize her own health or that of her home communities, to tend to her physical needs or to brave the danger of an oncoming hurricane—Noelia exhibits grace, determination, and resilience.
Marrero Sánchez’s script never makes too explicit the connection between the cancerous blight imposed on Vieques and the one that metastasizes in Noelia’s colon. The script and direction keep the narrative anchored in Noelia’s predicament so that The Fishbowl never succumbs to overt didacticism (not that that would in itself be a bad thing, but it’s not this film’s lane, so to speak). Throughout, the personal drama is compelling. In one scene, Noelia and Juni are on the verge of lovemaking, but her colostomy bag is an unmissable obstacle: Marrero Sánchez lets the action unfold slowly and realistically, with both humor and pathos, as the two adults navigate a passionate, if discomforting, situation.
It’s just one scene of many that will resonate with viewers long after The Fishbowl‘s credits roll. With her debut feature, Marrero Sánchez has made a film that works expertly on multiple levels: as a story of living with cancer, as one of personal growth, as one of connecting with a homeland, and one of giving oneself over to a cause. That its allegorical meanings are expertly wrought make it even more profoundly affecting.
